If you're born in a summer month, or in a place where the days are long and sunlight is plentiful, you're more likely a night owl, building energy throughout the day.

Those of you born in winter or in places where the days are short, will more likely be morning people -- and, the study says, more prone to depression. Are you a night owl or a lark?

Light has an effect on the brain and on psychology. It made a lot of sense to me. Don't we say of someone who is always positive that they have a sunny disposition?

Then you have astrology -- horoscopes. While this study* confirms that planets, in this case one planet, does in fact influence character and personality in the way they show up -- as behavior -- it does in no way confirms that the planets on your sign when you were born determine who you are or are going to behave as exactly.

So many factors contribute to the development of your identity -- as I said in my second review of Switch (Amazon affiliate link in that post), our identity is made up of several things:

heritage -- where we were born, where we live, our age, educational background, etc.

environment -- transient external factors such as the economy

needs -- they include both what we truly need and what we think we need and actually just want

interactions -- we also define ourselves in relationship with others

Which then get married to the same and other factors contributing to our behavior -- context and trust among the strongest, as I stated when I wrote about unpacking Klout, true measure of influence? The answer is no, it is not.

In response to a conversation I'm seeing about companies using Klout to reach out to "influencers" or, even more intriguing, those that may be thinking about looking at Klout scores as indication of a candidate's future performance on the job, I thought it would be good to take a very close look at the algorithm upon which scores are based and what the tool looks at -- in depth.

You're invited along for the conversation.

This blog and my philosophy is one of discovery where conversation is a true mechanism and vehicle to vet ideas and build upon them. In some cases, this means calling it like it is. In all cases, I hope it means you're willing to change your mind.

We'll be tough on ideas, soft on people. This is also an invitation for Joe Fernandez at Klout to participate -- I'll be happy to share how I'm planning to do this, so you can comment and have a voice in the posts.

When it comes to influence, you don't know what you don't know. This is why the conversation is much broader than one tool, this tool. We'll start with what Klout is/isn't, does/doesn't do, and take it from there.

I promised an interactive conversation about influence at SxSW -- it starts here and now.

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In case you missed them, here are other (not all) posts I wrote on influence:

Your points about context and trust are exactly why I value the long form context and thought process displayed in an individual's blog post, eBook, or blog comments. That's why I find it hard to believe that individuals would place so much weight in a Klout score that focuses on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook which are based on short-form context or an update mentality.

I believe that measuring and understanding influence in social networks is vitally important. However, it's going to take more than a Klout score, convenient soundbites in someone's Twitter stream, and the social proof of thousands of Twitter followers to convince me these factors are the sole basis for anointing someone as an influencer or thought leader of merit.

Show me you can structure an argument, have done the fact-based analysis to support that argument, and after reviewing and understanding those items within the proper context, maybe I'll grant you my trust.

Thank you Valeria for thoughtfully provoking our thoughts and opinions with this post. I can't wait to read and learn more as you share more about this continuing and compelling subject.

Parking the debate as to the value of klout for a moment, I think there will be pretenders to the the Klout throne. The trouble with Klout is that it's routed in one social media channel - Twitter. But our social media lives, more so than ever, sit in a multitude of different channels.

Klout's strength is to recognise the demand for people to be measured against a set of criteria. The trouble is, that it should be used as a guide and not as the gospel truth.